The recomposition of the techno-structure within the Portuguese Ministry of Education affects the organization of different services, the profile of their lead-ers, the type of knowledge that is produced and the means by which it is circu-lated. Read more ...

The different roles and forms of expert intervention in the policy-making process tend to structure the relationship between knowledge and policy, (i.e. what type of knowledge is involved and how it is produced, received and disseminated). Read more ...

In Portugal, the knowledge mobilized and registered in the discussions over school autonomy and management is at the origin of one of the main conflicts amongst the various actors of public-policy making. This is the result of a lack of common grounds between the existing “supply” in the academic world of education sciences, as part of the educational administration area, and the “demand” by the personnel of the Ministry of Education for “useful” knowledge to guide the policy-making... Read more ...

The public action process is not linear and involves several actors and “rationales”, all throughout the political decision-making process. Likewise, the knowledge inserted in public action varies from moment to moment and stems from the characteristics of the policy process itself. Read more ...

OECD’s PISA is a knowledge-based and knowledge-generating device that combines technical and social components, takes part in establishing regulations for the coordination and control of public action in education, operates several core categories of schooling, and to a certain extent rewrites the educational model for contemporary societies. Read more ...

How can knowledge generated by the PISA survey be converted into usable information for policy-makers? In this excerpt, we analyze how the OECD developed PISA as a credible and useful tool for the exercise of government power and/or government scrutiny. Read more ...

This excerpt is retrieved from a report on the public action relative to the introduction of sex education in schools in Portugal in the period between 1984 (date of the first decree approved by the Parliament on the matter – Law 3/84) and 2009 (date of the last decree passed by Parliament on the matter – Law 60/2009). The text gives an interpretative analysis on two main knowledge-policy configurations identified along the making of school sexual education policies in Portugal: «committees... Read more ...

This is the executive summary of our research report. The Report focuses on how measurement and evaluation gradually became important issues on the Hungarian educational policy agenda. It summarizes the findings of the research conducted between September 2007 and July 2009. Read more ...

Knowledge-Policy constellations are either distinct technologies of governance, or, more simply, highly observable crystallized forms of regular interaction that lead to the incorporation of specific SEN related knowledges into the public action. Read more ...

Our first findings show the principal differences between scientific knowledge production and its political usage. We see a reciprocal discontent between the scientific advisors or experts and the advised politicians: both of them blame the other side with not having enough knowledge to make scientific advising more effective. Read more ...

Knowledge is now central in governing. It has become both vehicle and substance of policy. How does this challenge democracy? Read more ...

In Europe, information and expertise are now both more widely distributed and more readily accessible than ever before. At the same time, expectations of transparency and public accountability have increased. In many ways, knowledge is coming to play a new role in policy: we can now distinguish ’post-bureaucratic’ from conventional ’bureaucratic’ regimes and show that each presupposes a specific kind of knowledge and a specific way of using it. While bureaucratic modes of governance require ‘established’ bodies of knowledge to be translated into ‘vertical’ regulations; post-bureaucratic modes of governance consist rather in attempting to turn actors’ autonomy and reflexivity into a means of governing.